Sermon Tone Analysis

(What do our sins bring to mind or bring forward?)

Good Morning, for those of you today who are believers, than there has come a time at some point in your life were you were taught about sin and what it is and means.

Maybe it was early on in your life or for some later on.

The point is, that you were taught about original sin, and that because of Adam and Eve choosing to disobey God’s good and perfect plan for their lives, they choose to disobey and eat from the fruit that God told them not to eat of.

Because of this they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God and became sinners.

And since Adam is the father of mankind, his guilt and sin nature are conveyed to all who have descended from him down through the generations of mankind.

Though we have been pardoned by the blood of Jesus, this sin nature still lives within us and that is why we need a Savior.

So, the question that I want us to wrestle with today is this subject on sin and really the doctrine of sin.

Do we understand what this is all about today?

The reason that I ask this is because I have seen over the past several years that the average sinner and of course unbelievers have little understanding of what sin is and that it actually is wrong.

Let me put it this way.

If you are here today and believe that there is no such thing as sin or that it’s not wrong to sin, as God’s Word tells us about sin then.

-Number one, you don’t see a need for God’s moral law in the 10 commandments.

-You don’t see the wisdom of God’s Word.

That you need it for life.

-You don’t see a reason to depend on God

-You don’t see the need and the importance of a redeemer in that of Jesus Christ who died for our sin.

-You don’t see the importance of the ministry of the church.

-And last, you don’t really have a hope for eternity.

Many people today don’t believe in the tragedy and universality of sin.

And because of that, what I have seen is that they continue to try and fix themselves.

People try to fix themselves by putting their hope in education, politics, philosophy, psychology, medicine, and on and on the list could go.

Yes, these things can help somewhat, and can all be good things, but they ultimately have no power to rescue us from the destruction, darkness and death of sin.

So what exactly is sin?

I mean what does God’s word tell us is sin?

Let’s begin in the Old Testament and then I want us to look to the new testament.

Exodus 20:3–17 (ESV)

“You shall have no other gods before me.

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,

but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor, and do all your work,

but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.

On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

“You shall not murder.

“You shall not commit adultery.

“You shall not steal.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Now let’s continue with these but we will look at what Jesus had to say about the actual commandments in the New Testament and then also look at one other passage.

Turn with me to Matthew chapter 5.

Now I want you to turn with me to Galatians chapter 5.

And these like these.

I may have not mentioned every sin today, but I think we get the point.

God’s Word tells us that these things are wrong and sinful.

Definition of sin: Sin is a rejection of God’s authority and his laws, and putting ourselves as the ultimate authority and writing our own laws.

Sin is a breaking of a relationship with God that then leads us to break his commands.

First John shows us what this really looks like.

There are a lot of things that we can love in this world that leaves us guilty before God.

Maybe it’s looking at pornography, or cheating on our taxes.

Maybe it’s being bitter and unforgiving in our marriage.

Maybe it’s patterns of gluttony, or racial animosity.

For some it can be greed and materialism, or patterns of gossip.

Whatever it is these all miss the mark.

A popular definition of sin is “missing the mark.”

The picture here that we have on the screens is of an archer who aimed at the target and missed to the left or right every time.

In other words, every arrow that we shoot falls short of the target.

No matter how hard we try or shoot, over and over again we will fall short.

On our own we are all hopelessly unable to hit the goal.

There is a standard, “God’s standard,” and we cannot attain it.

Paul says it this way in Romans.

What sin has done is that it has left us blind and deaf.

It has left us irrational and very foolish.

It has left us sick and dying.

It has left us lame and limp like the crippled man who was laying by the pool of Bethsaida in John chapter 5. We don’t have the power to help ourselves, and we cannot reverse sin’s damage.

Turn with me to John 5.

This man has been laying there for 38 years.

That is a really long time.

This man had no hope of getting up and being healed without a divine intervention.

If Jesus had not come along and said, “Get up, take your bed and walk,” this man would have continued to stay there on his mat for many more years.

I want you to think about this story with me today.

Why?

Here is why, because just like this man desperately needed the grace of physical healing, we all today need the grace of spiritual healing.

Because of sin, there is not any of us who are well.

Sin has left us morally week, unable to be what we are supposed to be and do what we have been created to do.

But there is good news church!!!

There is hope.

-What is God’s response to our sin?

God warns us not judges us.

Yes, someday we will all stand before God and be held accountable for what we did here on earth, but right now God gives us many warnings in His Word.

Why are there so many warnings in Scripture?

Because God loves us.

I love this: a warning isn’t judgment.

If all God intended to do was to judge and condemn us, he wouldn’t first warn us; he would only judge and condemn!

One of the ways we experience the loving fatherhood of God is that He gives us boundaries in His laws.

These laws are an expression of his love for us.

Here is what I mean by that.

God’s laws protect us from danger and draw us toward a deeper dependency and communion with him.

In his word, he sets boundaries of protection for us.

He does not do that to rob us of our freedom and joy, but so that we would be freed from the bondage and sadness that always result when we as sinners choose our own selfish way.

Jesus Christ fulfilled the law and took on our penalty by dying on the cross.

We all desperately need a Savior.

We need someone to save us from our sin.

So, in each warning and with each law, we really do experience the love from God. How?

Here is how, each warning shows us God’s patience, faithfulness, wisdom, and grace.